Customer Reviews:
 BRILLIANT CHARACTERISATION AND DIALOGUE. December 18, 2007
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
Many novelists have problems with either characterisation so that you can't remember who is who in the books, or dialogue so that everyone speaks the same, but not Anne Tyler.
'The Clock Winder' begins with Mrs Emerson, who reminds one so much of Amanda Wingfield, the mother in Tennessee Williams' 'The Glass Menagerie' and is not only identifiable by her clothes and 'her spike-heeled shoes that made her arches ache' but by her insistence on appearance and also by her speech :
' I never did think much of those streets of gold and pearly gates. Wouldn't you like to just go on like this forever? With something always about to happen and someone new always showing up? Oh wouldn't that make dying all right?'
Well, someone new does turn up but things don't just go on like this forever. Elizabeth brings with her a wave of new thinking and although she doesn't say very much in the house, it is transformed from a boring place where nothing gets any better, to a place where old ideas are shaken up and improvements, both physical and spiritual, are made.
There are tragedies and there is sorrow and great mistakes are made, but the different characters survive and live to tell their stories.
Instead of a sad tailing off at the end, there is a clever little twist which keeps the reader interested until the last.
This is excellent writing and this book is well worth buying and keeping to read again and again.
Nothing is finer than Tyler at her best February 1, 2005
31 out of 31 found this review helpful
This is an author who could wring magic from a mud puddle. Her material is ordinary human relationships in all their ordinary dysfunctional tangle. This one has Elizabeth as the most reluctant of heroines, drawn into a family that is waging pointless war on itself. She is hailed by them as their only hope to bring order to chaos, and is somehow unable to escape their clutches. Elizabeth says to one of the sons of the house "You all present me with your problems and lay them at my feet in heaps!" They do. But those heaped problems are not the real drama of the book, it is the quieter emotions that matter. And it is Anne Tyler's genius that she can portray them with such precision that their softly insistent voices are heard above the clamour. A superb book.
Driving Miss Daisy - with Charlie Dimmock at the wheel! June 20, 2001
13 out of 13 found this review helpful
One of Anne Tyler's best novels, the story tells of an every-changing relationship between recently widowed Mrs Emerson (who spends her days winding the clocks) and her newly acquired gardener/handywoman, Elizabeth. Mrs Emerson's friendship with and dependency on Elizabeth is reminiscent of "Driving Miss Daisy", and from Ms Tyler's description of Elizabeth I couldn't help picturing her as Charlie Dimmock!Mrs Emerson's family enter, leave, and inevitably change the relationship between employer and employee, bringing with them humour, sorrow and tragedy as their story unfolds. As with all Ms Tyler's novels, do not expect a fairytale happy ending, but be assured the story leaves its characters with a genuine contentment; despite sacrifices and compromises made they show us a real-life happiness is attainable. This version is all the easier to read if, like me, as you get older you find publishers are using smaller and smaller print!
Elizabeth is captivating. January 1, 2001
27 out of 34 found this review helpful
Possibly my favourite Tyler. Elizabeth is infuriating and wonderful. The family of the "clock" is reminiscent of any family - everyone has their own quirks and foibles. The novel has a great twist and has moments of high drama. Romantic, humourous and vivid.
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